In a while Matthew comes out. He stands beside the tree and they watch the sunset. The sky is pale-blue, streaked with orange, which seems to be spreading through the blue sky from behind, like liquid seeping through a napkin, blood through a bandage.
“Nice,” Matthew says.
“Yes,” he says. He is never going to be able to talk to Matthew.
“You know what I’m in the doghouse for?” Matthew says.
“What?” he says. Too long a pause before answering. He spit the word out, instead of saying it.
“Having a Japanese girlfriend,” Matthew says, and laughs.
He does not dare risk laughing with him.
“And I don’t even
“Where did you go to school?” he hears himself say.
There is a long pause, and Robert gets confused. He thinks he should be answering his own question.
Finally: “Harvard.”
“What class were you in?”
“Oh,” Matthew says. “You’re stoned, huh?”
It is too complicated to explain that he is not. He says, again, “What class?”
“1967,” Matthew says, laughing. “Is that your stuff or ours? She hid our stuff.”
“In my glove compartment,” Robert says, gesturing.
He watches Matthew walk toward his car. Sloped shoulders. Something written across the back of his jacket, being spoken by what looks like a monster blue bird. Can’t read it. In a while Matthew comes back smoking a joint, Zero trailing behind.
“They’re inside, talking about what a pig I am.” Matthew exhales.
“How come you don’t have any interest in this Japanese woman?”
“I do,” Matthew says, smoking from his cupped hand. “I don’t have a chance in the world.”
“I don’t guess it would be the same if you got another one,” he says.
“Another what?”
“If you went to Japan and got another one.”
“Never mind,” Matthew says. “Never mind bothering to converse.”
Zero sniffs the air and walks away. He lies down on the driveway, away from them, and closes his eyes.
“I’d like some Scotch to cool my lungs,” Matthew says. “And we don’t have any goddamn Scotch.”
“Let’s go get some,” he says.
“Okay,” Matthew says.
They stay, watching the colors intensify. “It’s too cold for me,” Matthew says. He thrashes his arms across his chest, and Zero springs up, leaping excitedly, and almost topples Matthew.
They get to Matthew’s car. Robert hears the door close. He notices that he is inside. Zero is in the back seat. It gets darker. Matthew hums. Outside the liquor store Robert fumbles out a ten-dollar bill. Matthew declines. He parks and rolls down the window. “I don’t want to walk in there in a cloud of this stuff,” he says. They wait. Waiting, Robert gets confused. He says, “What state is this?”
“Are you kidding?” Matthew asks. Matthew shakes his head. “Colorado,” he says.
The Lawn Party
I said to Lorna last night, “Do you want me to tell you a story?” “No,” she said. Lorna is my daughter. She is ten and a great disbeliever. But she was willing to hang around my room and talk. “Regular dry cleaning won’t take that out,” Lorna said when she saw the smudges on my suede jacket. “Really,” she said. “You have to take it somewhere special.” In her skepticism, Lorna assumes that everyone else is also skeptical.
According to the Currier & Ives calendar hanging on the back of the bedroom door, and according to my watch, and according to my memory, which would be keen without either of them, Lorna and I have been at my parents’ house for three days. Today is the annual croquet game that all our relatives here in Connecticut gather for (even some from my wife’s side). It’s the Fourth of July, and damn hot. I have the fan going. I’m sitting in a comfortable chair (moved upstairs, on my demand, by my father and the maid), next to the window in my old bedroom. There is already a cluster of my relatives on the lawn. Most of them are wearing little American flags pinned somewhere on their shirts or blouses or hanging from their ears. A patriotic group. Beer (forgive them: Heineken’s) and wine (Almaden Chablis) drinkers. My father loves this day better than his own birthday. He leans on his mallet and gives instructions to my sister Eva on the placement of the posts. Down there, he can see the American flags clearly. But if he is already too loaded to stick the posts in the ground, he probably isn’t noticing the jewelry.
